


is this what you want? (is this who you are?)

by texaswatermelon



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 03:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6268339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texaswatermelon/pseuds/texaswatermelon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The weight of her things on her back nearly drags her backwards, away from the capitol of the Grounders.  Still, she carries on against every instinct.  She doesn’t have a choice.</em>
</p><p>Post 3x07, completely ignoring the last half of that episode. I just had a lot of feelings about Abby integrating into Grounder society and I needed to get them all down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	is this what you want? (is this who you are?)

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** The 100 and its characters are property of the CW, etc. No infringement intended.  
>  **A/N:** As stated above, this story is Abby-centric. There are hints of Clexa in here if you're looking for them, but they are not the main focus. Mostly you just need to know that Lexa is alive and well and Raven never took the pill of light or whatever they're calling it. This is more headcanon than anything anyway.
> 
> Story title comes from "The Less I Know The Better" by Tame Impala.
> 
> Special thanks to dubcliq for proofing this for me first.

The gates of Polis rise up in front of them, tall, strong and unyielding.  They are as much a warning as they are a defense.  Abby feels her heart rebel in protest at the sight of them.  The weight of her things on her back nearly drags her backwards, away from the capitol of the Grounders.  Still, she carries on against every instinct.  She doesn’t have a choice.

Clarke swells with excitement as they approach, eager to be back in the city—back with Lexa.  Whatever is between her and the Commander, Abby hasn’t pressed for information.  She has learned bit by bit that Clarke is no longer a little girl.  She can make decisions for herself, even if Abby doesn’t agree with them.  She has assured her mother time and again that this is the right choice, that she and Lexa can find a way to broker peace, and that their small group moving to the city is the first step.  Abby can’t quite bring herself to believe that, but here she is anyway.

Pike’s betrayal of the Coalition and subsequent election to Chancellor has torn the Sky People in two.  There are too many of them who still harbor anger over being abandoned at Mount Weather, who believe that the people of Arkadia are best left to their own devices, or who simply believe the Grounders to be savages who deserve to die.  Only a handful of them have decided to leave and accept Lexa’s offer of asylum within her walls.  Octavia and Raven are with them.  Kane convinced a few others who don’t agree with Pike’s methods to go with them, but stayed behind himself.  He still believes he can affect change from the inside.  He refuses to abandon Arkadia and its people.  Abby refuses to abandon Clarke.

Clarke’s enthusiasm for this alliance scares her.  She understands why her daughter is willing to give the Commander a second chance.  Clarke is young, still almost a child despite all that she’s faced these past months.  Children are quick to forgive, quick to trust.  Abby is too old to forget.  She still feels the sting of betrayal at the hands of this young commander.  She can’t afford to let her guard down, for all of their sakes.  But she will not be a party to Pike’s plans of slaughter and warfare.

Lexa greets them just inside of the city walls with a serious expression and a short bow of her head.  She promises them sanctuary and safety so long as they abide by Grounder law.  Only Clarke and Octavia look pleased at the prospect.  Abby can see the memory of the torture the Grounders subjected Raven to flashing in the girl’s eyes as she stares at the Commander with a stony expression.  There are Grounders glaring at them with barely contained contempt from behind Lexa, likely a result of the underhanded destruction of their warriors.  Not everyone will be won over by this alliance, no matter how much Clarke and Lexa will it to be so.  Abby thinks maybe the Grounders and Sky People will never be meant for coexistence.

They’re all given rooms in Lexa’s giant tower.  Clarke immediately runs off to have a meeting with the Commander and doesn’t have the courtesy to tell anyone else what it’s about before she leaves.  The rest of them stand around, unsure of where to begin and uncomfortable in this place that doesn’t belong to them.

“I still can’t believe we agreed to this,” Raven says, tugging at her sleeves while she leans against the wall.  “Fool me once, shame on you…”

She doesn’t finish, but the meaning of her statement is clear, and Abby is inclined to agree.  All they have going for them now is a wisp of delusion that doesn’t even qualify as hope.

xx

Lexa gives them leave to work and train within the city.  Raven takes up with some of the blacksmiths, the closest thing the Grounders have to engineers.  At first she does it reluctantly, something to keep herself busy, but day by day Abby can notice her intrigue and curiosity taking over.  She learns from them and teaches them in kind.  She walks around the city and jots down notes about how to make things better—safer, sturdier, more efficient.  She’s not quite at the point where she’s ready to share her ideas with anyone yet.  If Lexa is going to betray them all again, there’s no reason to help make her home base even stronger than it already is.

Octavia finds her place back at Indra’s side almost as if she never left.  The braids and armor fit her better than life on the Ark ever did.  She has a home here.  She is wanted.

To Abby, Lexa offers the chance to continue practicing medicine.

“Our healers have different methods than you do, but they are very skilled and bound by oath to help.  You may learn from them as much as they would learn from you,” she says, and Abby can tell that she is proud of her people.

Lexa shows her to a hut on the outer rim of the city, Clarke following close behind.  The inside of the hut is very simple—a small waiting area with a wooden bench just inside the door, a large wooden table for patients to lie down on, shelves lining the walls with an assortment of glass bottles that don’t appear to be arranged in any particular order.  Bundles of herbs and flowers hang from the ceiling, and animal skin tapestries are stretched across the walls, depicting scenes that Abby can’t quite make out at first glance.

A very large man turns to face them.  His hair is dark and wiry, his beard full and bushy.  His muscled body is covered in tattoos.  He drops to a bow as soon as he sees Lexa, but she waves her hand and bids him to stand.

“This is Javisk,” Lexa says, glancing at Abby.  “He is the best healer in Polis.  He will allow you to practice with him if you wish.”

Javisk doesn’t look very pleased at the prospect of working with her, but when Lexa turns to him and says something in Trigedalseng, he nods solemnly and doesn’t say anything in protest.

Abby looks around this tiny hut with its herbs and incense and complete lack of technology and sanitation.  She knows there is a larger healing center in the middle of the city, wonders why Lexa didn’t take her there instead.  Did she think it would be easier if she hid Abby away in the outskirts back here?  And how is she expected to practice medicine this way?

“I know it’s different,” Clarke says quietly, as if reading her mind, “but it will be good for you to get your hands dirty.  Keep yourself busy and learn something new.  You always said no one knows a population better than the local doctor.  This is your chance to get to know your new people.”

Abby nearly recoils at the thought of calling the Grounders “her people”, but releases a heavy sigh instead.  Clarke is right.  This is her reality now.

xx

The people of Polis do not trust her.

After the bombing at Tondc, the people were so desperate for medical attention that they didn’t even think to protest her presence or her methods.  These people are not as desperate and don’t care to let her help them even with the simplest of ailments.  They eye her with suspicion and speak only to Javisk, who doesn’t trust her either.  He took one look at the bag of medical supplies Abby was able to smuggle away from Camp Jaha upon her departure and huffed with displeasure.

So Abby sits and watches him take patient after patient, stuffing herbs and pastes into open wounds and wrapping them in bits of cloth or mixing tonics of out of crushed seeds and water and sending people home with them like prescriptions.  She doesn’t understand how people can prefer those methods to anesthesia and alcohol swabs, superstition over real medicine.  Javisk will not teach her.  He barely even speaks to her, and Abby doesn’t know enough Trigedasleng to understand what he’s saying half the time anyway.

She hates it here, really.

“My people are wary of yours as the Sky People are wary of mine.  Most people are resistant to change, but that does not mean they cannot be won over.  The people will come to trust you in time, _Abi kom Skaikru_ , as I have done since coming to know you.”

Abby should have known that Clarke would tell Lexa about her concerns considering the fact that they spend just about every waking moment together (and most non-waking moments as well, Abby suspects), but she would prefer not to have the Commander settling that knowing green gaze on her that is far too wise beyond her years.

Anyway, she’s pretty sure that Lexa is wrong.  These people will never accept her as one of their own and she will never be one of them.  She will never belong.

xx

She knows something is very wrong when two Grounder warriors come charging into the medicine hut, carrying a limp little girl between them with her sobbing mother trailing behind.

Javisk springs into action, instructing the warriors to lay the girl on the table.  Her shirt is soaked in blood—almost too much blood for a girl that size—and he starts peeling it away to get a good look at the wound.  Three long, jagged, deep cuts streak across the child’s chest at an angle.  Abby’s breath catches at the sight.  She can’t tell if the girl is breathing.

“What happened to her?” she asks the girl’s mother, a slight woman who will only answer in incomprehensible Trigedalseng.  “ _What happened to her?_ ” she asks again, to the whole room this time and with an edge to her voice that causes the warriors to look at her cautiously.

“She strayed too far from her mother while they were out collecting berries.  She was attacked by a creature,” one of them finally says.  She frowns for a moment.  “I do not know a name for it that you would understand.”

Abby doesn’t need to know its name.  From those claw marks, she can make any number of guesses, and thinks it was probably a panther or mountain lion.

“How long ago?” she asks.

“Nearly an hour now,” the warrior says solemnly.

Abby swears softly, watching as Javisk cleans blood away from the wound, his face set in stone as he concentrates.  He begins shaking his head and steps away from the girl.  The warriors hang their heads and the girl’s mother wails.

“What are you doing?” Abby asks, confusion turning to disbelief and then anger as she watches Javisk give up.  “She’s still alive!  What are you doing?”

She steps into his space and questions him again and he turns irritated eyes upon her.

“Nothing can be done for her,” he grits out.  “She cannot be saved.”

“You didn’t even try,” Abby growls, and pushes him out of her way.

Javisk stumbles aside, surprise and outrage etched on his face while the warriors glance between them warily.  Abby ignores them and begins working on the child, grabbing her bag of supplies.  She starts going through the motions of a lifesaving operation, and though it’s not the environment she’s used to or even requires for something this drastic, the familiarity of it calms her as she settles in and begins to focus.

“Javisk, I need the gauze out of my bag,” she says.

When nothing happens, she looks up to find him staring at her in defiance, and snaps.

“If you’re just going to stand there and watch this girl die while I’m trying to save her life, then you might as well leave.  I don’t care if you trust me or my methods, but you don’t need to sacrifice this child just to prove a point.  We’re both here to do the same job.  So are you going to help me do it or not?”

The ferociousness in her voice seems to spur him into action.  He blinks a few times before turning to rifle through her bag, bringing her a handful of gauze.

“We’re going to pack these wounds with it so she doesn’t lose any more blood,” Abby tells him, and shows him how to do it.  He follows her instructions to the letter.  “Now I need you to convince her mother to agree to a blood transfusion.  It’s the only way we can save this girl.”

It’s a risk, since the mother may not even be the right blood type, but the girl will die anyway if they don’t try it, so she quickly explains the process to Javisk.  He looks incredulous, but tells her he thinks he can dig up the tubing she needs in order to do it.  Then he goes to speak to the girl’s mother about it.  He explains it to her softly, and Abby sees her nodding before he even finishes.  Javisk seems surprised, but brings her over so they can begin.

It takes hours before Abby is finally convinced that the little girl won’t die on them at any second.  She lies sleeping on a cot that Javisk pulled out for her, wounds bandaged and skin looking significantly less ashen.  Her mother is slumped over the cot, passed out from exhaustion.  She must have thanked Abby a million times, grasping her hands tightly and muttering while Javisk translated.  Abby wipes the sweat from her brow and finally takes the time to wash the blood from her hands in the water basin.

“I did not think it was possible, what you did,” Javisk says once they’ve wiped everything down.  “She would be dead were it not for you.”

“They may not be my people, but I still care about helping them,” Abby replies.

She feels a tiredness deep in her bones and sinks against one of the shelves.  Javisk inspects her carefully with his heavy gaze.

“You saved the life of one of their children.  They are your people now.  You are theirs.”

He shuffles away, leaving Abby to glance over at her patient, sleeping, but alive to see another day.

xx

Word travels quickly in Polis, apparently.  Within a few days, she has a line of people waiting outside of the medicine hut to see her.  Javisk has to run double duty between caring for his own patients and translating for those citizens who don’t speak English.  Abby makes a mental note to tell Lexa she needs a tutor so that she can communicate better.

The supplies she brought with her from Camp Jaha are very limited, and with the new demand for her expertise, she runs out in no time.  But Javisk, who also seems to have a newfound respect for her, shows her the cloth he uses for bandages.  It’s a bit coarser than the gauze she’s used to, but otherwise very similar.  He teaches her about the various plants he uses to make salves that stave off infection, soothe burns, and even act as a numbing agent.  Abby has the idea to steep the numbing plant in boiling water so that it can be injected for more serious injuries.

In return for his help, Abby shows Javisk how to make a clean cut with a scalpel, how to stitch a wound to minimize scarring, and how to sterilize his equipment before each use.  She gets Raven to have her blacksmith contacts craft them two tables out of metal and takes her tools over so that they can replicate those, too.  She presents the set to Javisk as a gift and he presses a large hand to the crown of her head and smiles like she’s never seen him do before.

Slowly but surely, Abby finds herself amassing a collection of pictures drawn by local children, wooden and stone figurines carved by grateful parents, jewelry crafted to match her eyes—all of them gifts from the people she sees on a daily basis.  She places them around her room in the tower, and when Lexa stops by one evening to not-so-subtly ask Abby if she thinks Clarke will like the bracelet Lexa had made for her, she glances at the drawings and trinkets with a small smirk and a piercing gaze.

“You are _Abi kom Trigedakru_ , now,” she says, thanks Abby for her help, and leaves.

xx

As the weeks pass, Abby finds herself becoming more comfortable in Grounder clothing.  One of her patients, a woman named Malahn, insists on braiding her hair the way the locals wear it.  Abby finally relents, and when it’s done, Javisk gives her a nod of approval.  When she looks in the mirror, she finds that the braids suit her more than she thought they would.

She begins to know the streets of Polis as well as she knew the halls of the Ark.  When she weaves through the stalls of the market district, people call out to her in Trigedasleng and she understands what they’re saying, knows how to respond in kind.  Children run up to her in the streets to tug at her leg and give her hugs.  Adults grasp at her fingers and thank her when she passes by.  When she travels the city with Lexa and Clarke, the people look at her with as much reverence and respect as they do with _Heda_ and _Wanheda_.

Javisk shows her a tattoo on his cheek one day, and it looks like three connected spirals that form the canopy of a thick tree.

“It is the symbol all of our healers wear.  You should wear it, too.”

Abby is simultaneously humbled by the suggestion and repulsed by the idea of getting a tattoo.  She was appalled when Clarke got her first one, and glared at Lexa for days for her perceived influence.

“You should definitely get it,” Clarke says excitedly when Abby mentions the idea later that night.

“You know I don’t like tattoos, Clarke,” Abby replies, shooting her a look.

“Come on, Mom.  You stab people with needles all the time.  What’s the difference?”

“The difference is that I’m not stabbing them repeatedly, and I try to minimize any permanent markings, not leave them behind on purpose,” Abby argues.

“I don’t know, Doc, I think it would be pretty cool,” Raven says, and Clarke looks at her mother pointedly.

Lexa, who hasn’t weighed in since the subject was brought up, clears her throat.

“It is a great honor to bear the mark of a healer.  You have done much for our people.  You deserve the honor.”

Abby looks around at them all—Lexa’s neutral expression, Clarke’s expectant one, and Raven’s amusement—and sighs.

“Fine.  But I’m getting really drunk first.”

xx

The tattoo ends up on her left wrist, and Abby has no memory of how it got there.  Clarke cackles at her when she asks about it, but refuses to say anything more.  Lexa looks at Clarke with barely contained affection and simply tells Abby that she did well.

“You were fine during the tattoo, but you tried to hit on Javisk in really awful Trigedasleng afterwards and then you puked everywhere,” Raven tells her later.

Abby face-plants onto her bed and tries to avoid looking at anyone for the rest of the day.

xx

Months later, when Kane finally contacts her to tell her that Pike is gone and he’s the leader of the Sky People once more, that he has the people in line and everyone has agreed to join the Coalition if the offer still stands, Abby looks in the mirror and thinks about what it would be like to go back.  She misses them, the ones they left behind at Camp.  She misses Kane and Bellamy, Monty and Jasper and Miller.  She misses the people who once belonged to her, and could belong to her again.

She does not miss Arkadia or the cold sterility of the sick bay.  She doesn’t miss her old office or sleeping quarters.  She doesn’t miss anything else outside of these city walls.

Polis is her home now, impossible as that seemed to her at first.  She loves its warmth, its smells, the laughter of its people in the streets.  She loves her little medicine hut that she shares with Javisk.  She belongs here.  These are her people.  She didn’t choose them, but they are hers nevertheless.  She thinks maybe that makes it all the more special.


End file.
